OLIVER DODD explains that big business in Colombia has everything to gain from extending its war against the poor within its own borders to the fledgling socialist state that it neighbours ON May 3, armed combatants arrived from Colombia to take prisoner or assassinate leading figures of Venezuela’s left-wing political leadership, including the country’s president,… Read More The Colombian Connection: US imperialism and Venezuela
OLIVER DODD reports on the National Liberation Army’s general strike backed up with guns FOR 72 hours in February, transport and industry across Colombia was severely impaired as militants lent the weight of their weapons to anti-neoliberal protesters. Causing massive damage to capitalist accumulation, uniquely, the ELN’s aim was to persuade Colombia’s government and dominant… Read More Amid intensifying state repression, Colombia’s ELN imposes an ‘armed strike’
In 2017 Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) gave up its weapons and began a process of demobilisation, based on a 2016 peace agreement which promised the Farc political legitimacy and protection from capitalist-backed paramilitary violence, as well as comprehensive rural reform for the benefit of peasants. Highlighting that the exploitation and victimisation of… Read More Colombia’s 2016 peace agreement is in crisis, despite the commitment of Comunes
Throughout Colombia’s half-century civil war, wealthy social sectors, especially landowners, have sponsored the formation of private armed groups to act as a counter-measure against the labour movement to protect their interests. These paramilitaries have generally employed violence and terror as a conscious weapon against civilians. The objective has been to make workers too afraid to… Read More Death squads in Colombia – paid for by big business
Embedded researcher OLIVER DODD, who lived among the armed guerilla forces of the ELN, explains their origins, theory and practice Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN) is Latin America’s oldest insurgent movement. When founded in 1964, the ELN was, strategically and tactically speaking, inspired by the Cuban Revolution, which proved that a determined and well-organised political-military… Read More Why Latin America’s oldest insurgent communist army is growing
SINCE 2017, Colombia’s government and the left-wing National Liberation Army (ELN) have been publicly engaged in peace talks to end 54 years of armed conflict. But following the inauguration of right-wing president Ivan Duque in August 2018, a man who vowed to end peace talks during his presidential campaign, Colombia’s new government has since canceled… Read More Why has Colombia’s government ended peace talks with Marxist rebels ELN?
Since 2017, Colombia’s government and the National Liberation Army (ELN), a Marxist revolutionary group, have been engaged in discussions to end 54 years of war. So far, the government has been playing down the strength of the insurgent group while hoping to negotiate its surrender in return for its protection as a legal political entity.… Read More President Iván Duque and Colombia’s ELN
Near the Colombian border in Ecuador, in 2010, I spoke with a former FARC guerrilla who was forcefully relieved of his duties after a military aircraft took one of his legs away. Like the overwhelming majority of Campesinos I have met, and although he was categorised as a ‘terrorist’ by some governments, I was received… Read More Meeting FARC Insurgents
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